Special Note: This post involves a little experiment. On Monday evening, July 23, I had about 115 items in my spam queue. Last time I put the word “gay” in the title of a post, my spam queue grew to over 2200. That spam was mostly porn related and targeted the post with “gay” in the title. I wonder if that will happen again.

Note also that when I start getting that much spam I don’t have time to fish legitimate comments out of the spam queue. Sorry.

What Defines Logical Thought?

Logical thought is a scarce commodity. What logic requires is a firm commitment to the whole truth, but accepting the whole truth and nothing but the whole truth is difficult for any human being. Because we each want to believe the “truth” that serves our ego, we balk at accepting the whole truth.

Therefore, when we debate politics — which usually involves clashing egos — we exchange barrages of emotional rhetoric. Instead of calmly discussing the issues involved, we accuse each other of wrongs, and we call each other names.

Because our sexual identity is so much a part of how we present our self to others, we wrap our sexual identity around our egos. That makes sexual identity politics and issues such homosexual rights and same-sex marriage ready sources for explosive conflict.

So What Is A Christian To Do?

We must carefully consider our Bibles. What does the Bible actually say?

We must carefully consider the words of our Bible teachers, our pastors and lay leaders. Are they offering us their own wisdom or instructing us on the meaning of God’s Word?

We must carefully consider what our political leaders propose. Are they pitting us against each other or do they seek to protect our God-given rights?

What does it mean to “carefully consider”? We pray. We try to see the words of the Bible and the words of men from the perspective of God.

To seek a position of leadership, either in the church or government, requires ambition. That ambition may involve the accomplishment of a worthy end. Yet our leaders have the same problem we have. How do we separate our ambition for personal advancement from our desire to accomplish a worthy goal? We cannot easily do such a thing. We can only listen when our fellow men and women seek to hold us accountable. Thus, we must examine the motives of leaders skeptically. Are they modelling the behavior of Jesus, who sought only to glorify the Father, or are our leaders just advocates for a special interest group grasping at something undeserved.

In Gay Is Not the New Black, Voddie Baucham examines homosexuality as a civil rights issue. Without anger or malice, Baucham pulls apart the arguments for homosexual rights.

It’s hard to deny that homosexual marriage appears to be a foregone conclusion in America. This is a frightening prospect not only for those of us who understand marriage to be a testimony of the relationship between Christ and his bride, the church, but also for all who value the family and its contribution to the well-being of society and human thriving. And while it’s difficult to watch a coordinated, well-funded, well-connected propaganda strategy undermine thousands of years of human history, it’s especially disconcerting to witness the use of the civil rights struggle as the vehicle for the strategy. (continued here)

Instead of anger or malice, Baucham tinges his article with sorrow. Why are Christians losing on this issue? Why are we allowing such a corrosive attack on the fundamental building block of our society to succeed? In his article, Baucham suggests we fear confrontation.

It is very important for those of us who oppose the idea of same-sex “marriage” to do so not because we wish to preserve our version of the American Dream, but because we view marriage as a living, breathing picture of the relationship between Christ and his church (Eph. 5:22ff), and because we know that God has designed the family in a particular way. While the design of the family promotes human thriving (Gen 1:27-28), the testimony points people to their only hope in this life and the next. As a result, silence on this issue is not an option.

Unfortunately (and quite ironically), many Christians have been bullied into silence by the mere threat of censure from the homosexual lobby. “Oppose us and you’re no better than Gov. Wallace, Hitler, and those homophobes who killed Matthew Shepard!” is their not-so-subtle refrain. Consequently, we spend so much time trying to prove we’re not hate-filled murderers that we fail to recognize that the Emperor has no clothes. There is no legal, logical, moral, biblical, or historical reason to support same-sex “marriage.” In fact, there are myriad reasons not to support it. I’ve only provided a few. (from here)

Are you afraid of homosexual rights activists? Then your fear is misplaced.

One of the more controversial issues in our country today is the issue of same-sex marriage, civil unions and the role of homosexuality. With the upcoming Presidential primaries and general election, the subject of same-sex marriages versus civil unions has been receiving more airplay.

I thought it would be a good thing to take a few moments and refresh our memories concerning the biblical teachings on homosexuality, its historical occurrences, and its standing in the eyes of God.

Intimidation is lot easier than winning in the market place of ideas. Fear and loathing of public criticism makes us such weaklings. If we are silent, then the crucifixion off Sen. Santorum served its purpose. If we speak out boldly everywhere, then, like the crucifixion of Jesus, our Liberal Pharisees will fail. The self-righteous hypocrites can only kill careers, not ideas – as long as we are brave enough.

3 Responses to GAY IS NOT THE NEW BLACK

Taking my argument you linked to above one step farther –think about this problem for a bit. The entire argument against racism is that people’s genetics don’t determine their beliefs or behavior –that you can’t judge all Jews to be “shylocks,” and all blacks to be “ignorant,” and all Irish to be “lazy,” because of their race, or rather because of their genetics. The argument that homosexuality is genetic therefore turns the argument against racism on it’s head. If genetics determine behavior, then the racist are right –it is logical to survey a population, examine the average behavior of that population, declare that behavior genetic, and then tie that behavior to the skin color or race or line of descent or whatever.

So those who are saying, “gay is the new black” are actually destroying the case against racism in the process.

Not likely to understand the irony? I suspect they can understand. I fear we often confuse stupidity with willful ignorance. God, however, knows when we make a choice. That’s one reason why a healthy fear of leads increases one’s wisdom.

Words From The Past

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. -- Benjamin Franklin (from here)